Finally to SeerSGB. You are absolutely right about the fact that if you think really hard you can rip any Trek film to pieces and find like several or so major plot holes. But why not tally up all the plotholes in STID, I bet the final number would be greater than either Star Trek V, Insurrection or Nemesis!

And WOK was a movie that wouldn't have happened had Chekov of Terrell stopped for directions. Or, you know, counted to six and got stuck on five.

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Or, you know, did not disable the ship's navigation systems. I mean, there's no possible way the ship navigated automatically one orbit out without giving a warning, unless it was designed by morons. And even if it was, it would have been fixed the second time it went to the wrong place.

b) Khan simply beamed himself on to the Vengeance's bridge, killed everyone there, vented the ship's atmosphere, and taken it to Earth to get his vengeance.

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Well, technically, the bridge was empty, so it was easier than that, and there are even more transporter "plot holes" in STID. You know why? Because the damn transporter is a plot hole every second time something happens because of its very existence. The missions that couldn't be magically ended by using it are counted on the fingers on my right hand after that table saw accident.

TWOK is filled with plot holes and character stupidity. A sampling would include, but not be limited to:
-Ceti Alpha 5 or 6? And no, a planet does NOT take the orbit of another destroyed planet.
-Kirk, the 'seasoned' captain, failed to raise shields - contra regulations - despite having ample warning as to the Reliant's suspicious behaviour. Who cares about regulations when you have a gigantic ego that just got a few of your crew killed, yes?
-the eel leaving Chekov's head. Because it was bored due to a lack of brain to consume?
-Khan, the so-called 'super-man' is not smart enough to realise space has 3 spatial dimensions, as opposed to 2. I've seen shows with monkeys who realised this just fine.
-etc

By comparison with these, STID is the peak of logical consistency.
Unrivaled plot holes? Not even close.

I can understand some disagreements on the perceived qualities of the various iterations of Trek. But it's starting to get out of hand. It feels like some folks are coming to this forum just for the chance to pick a fight.

I'm not a huge fan of Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise but I don't feel the need to rush into those forums and take a dump on something other people obviously enjoy.

It's starting to feel mean-spirited and I really think that is sad.

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There's a lot of that here, and I don't understand the personal attacks I keep seeing. Completely counterproductive. Keeps the mods busy though. It doesn't take an psychic to guess when thread closure or warnings are imminent.

The problem is that every Star Trek fan -- irrespective of what series he likes -- watches the movies. The reason why this STID division is bigger than most is because it ain't a clash of different ST, it's a clash of quality or even the Star Wars vs Star Trek argument.

The first group appears rather happy with what is a rather average, at best, movie. While the second group sees STID for what it is and is one more Star Trek film running on vapours. The same kind of vapours which had Nemisis, VOY and ENT limping along.

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By what rubric do you measure STiD as average at best? Box office results are not in line with that assessment. General audience reception and reviews have been very positive.

Finally, comparing STiD to Nem, VOY, and ENT... IMO those are well below average in terms of quality, sales, and entertainment value (with a few episode exceptions). In addition to my personal opinion, I'd point to sales figures to back that up, but I don't think I need to.

The first group appears rather happy with what is a rather average, at best, movie. While the second group sees STID for what it is and is one more Star Trek film running on vapours. The same kind of vapours which had Nemesis, VOY and ENT limping along.

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Oh Lordy, Lordy!!! I've finally seen the light!!! How could I possibly enjoy something that I find fun and exciting!!! I've been following the false Trek prophet Abrams and am now seeking absolution!!!

What a fucking joke.

Why are you and others so damned convinced we don't know what we like? How is a pair of movies that are thought of highly by viewers and just produced the highest-grossing installment in the franchises history, running on vapors?

I get tired of pulling this graphic out:

91% of 231,000 voters said they liked Star Trek Into Darkness with an average rating of 4.3.

The first group appears rather happy with what is a rather average, at best, movie. While the second group sees STID for what it is and is one more Star Trek film running on vapours. The same kind of vapours which had Nemesis, VOY and ENT limping along.

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Oh Lordy, Lordy!!! I've finally seen the light!!! How could I possibly enjoy something that I find fun and exciting!!! I've been following the false Trek prophet Abrams and am now seeking absolution!!!

What a fucking joke.

Why are you and others so damned convinced we don't know what we like? How is a pair of movies that are thought of highly by viewers and just produced the highest-grossing installment in the franchises history, running on vapors?

I get tired of pulling this graphic out:

91% of 231,000 voters said they liked Star Trek Into Darkness with an average rating of 4.3.

My information is correct, it didn't make half a billion worldwide, the japanese people avoided it like the plague. I wonder how much paramount paid those sites to bullshit.

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Just because Star Trek into Darkness didn't do quite as well in Japan doesn't make it a failure. Star Trek has traditionally fared poorly in non-US markets, and in fact, the much better international gross of Into Darkness is something to be commended. Even in Japan, it has scored $9 million compared to $5.8 million of the 2009 movie, showing that there is a significant improvement.

NO Star Trek movie has made half a billion worldwide. Star Trek Into Darkness remains the one movie closest to reaching half a billion with a total gross of $465 million. In fact, with the exception of The Voyage Home, none of them have domestic grosses (Box Office Mojo doesn't have non-US box office details for some Trek movies) that exceed $100 million. So are all the other Star Trek movies failures too?

If studios could easily influence critics to give positive reviews it's a wonder why so many blockbusters are still panned. For example why didn't Paramount pay them to upvote the Transformers series then?

I could dump part of a letter I wrote to SFDebris regarding STiD's plot holes/stupidity if you want.

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I'd love to read that.

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Here you go:

Then Star Trek into Darkness came out and it was… a big, dumb mess. It’s simultaneously all the bad parts of The Final Frontier, Insurrection, and that one episode/movie you reviewed where it kept getting worse each time you saw it.

One of the reasons for that is Khan. I actually don’t mind the fact that they used Khan, but it was a mistake for 3 reasons:
1) It justified everything the skeptics said about the creative team not being able to come up with something new and that they could only ripoff the originals, especially with the inverted Wrath of Khan death scene.
2) The use of Khan felt unearned, because it’s too soon to put a crew that’s discovering itself (and being discovered by the audience) against such an overwhelming and well-known foe. There needed to be at least one movie where the Abrams Trek crew worked together as a cohesive team and showed the audience that they were the best of the best, so that when Khan is outwitting them, it honestly feels like he’s superior to them in every way. STiD suffers a lot because Khan is facing off against a crew of rookies, which automatically makes everything he does less impressive.
3) Khan is two characters – John Harrison and Khan Noonien Singh (who was shoehorned in by Damon Lindelof) – and John Harrison is the more interesting character. Even though Harrison is a fairly generic sociopathic genius type character, he’s interesting because we want to know why he betrayed Starfleet and did all those horrible things. But once he’s revealed as Khan, he becomes a scenery chewing villain with little subtlety except in the scenes where he's the generic genius villain (in fact, at one point in the scene where Khan and Spock are on the bridges of their ships, Khan’s facial expression is literally that of an anime character).

As for the rest of the movie, it’s the ultimate combination of bad writing tropes: “competence and pragmatism = evil,” “evil = stupid,” and “good = dumb.” The result is a film that constantly makes me ask the two questions that shouldn’t be asked often while watching it: “why are the characters doing X?” and “why don’t/didn’t they do something else?” It says a lot that the novelization, much like The Final Frontier’s, manages to turn an incoherent mess into something that at least is a passable story with understandable character motives.

For example, consider Admiral Marcus. He is presented as evil for wanting to build up Starfleet’s military abilities after seven ships and a founding world of the Federation is destroyed, which is a totally reasonable position. His orders to kill Khan using the torpedoes are also completely understandable and justified in retrospect by what happens after Kirk fails to kill Khan once they get on the bridge of the dreadnought USS Vengeance. But his plan to start a war with the Klingons isn’t just immoral, but utterly stupid and nonsensical because of how counterproductive it is.

Marcus wants Starfleet to be militarized and I guess a war would force Starfleet to do it, but it would make more sense to pit the Klingons and Romulans and buy time to complete more dreadnoughts and long range torpedoes, while upgrading the fleet with tech developed with Khan’s help. Reinforcing the idea that he’s an idiot is the fact that he and Section 31 had no contingency plans for dealing with Khan, didn’t foresee Khan betraying them and insert a bomb into his body (Escape from New York style), didn't think of killing Khan’s people in the torpedoes, tossing the torpedoes into the sun/Jupiter, taking the Vengeance and firing the torpedoes at Khan, or anything you can think of.

It doesn’t help that Peter Weller phones in a scenery chewing performance of his own that reduces his character to yet another of Star Trek’s mad admirals. While it’s hard to make a fully fleshed out villain in a movie already packed with characters, giving Marcus a chance to explain his reasoning and getting him to not sound like an irritated asshole all the time would’ve given him depth and a chance to be seen as a tragic villain. As it is, it’s hard to give a shit when he dies (although you do kind of wind up rooting for him to blow up the Enterprise because of how dumb Kirk is).

Sadly, Khan is stupid too. First of all, he puts his people in a convenient package for anyone seeking to eliminate them, without even bothering to replace the warhead with some inert material. In fact, putting people you are trying to keep alive in torpedoes while being a fugitive on another planet seems like the best way to get them killed. Second, he doesn’t take his alka-seltzer ring bomb (which can devastate a huge underground facility with no problems) and force someone working for Admiral Marcus to use it. That would’ve paralyzed Starfleet, gotten him revenge, and made sure that no one would be on his heels after escaping Earth. Third, he doesn’t beam to bridge of the Vengeance, kill everyone there, vent the atmosphere on the ship, blow his way out of the dock, and take over Earth. I know one of the writers has Tweeted why this couldn’t be done, but like you said, it doesn’t count if it’s not in the movie. Fourth, beaming to a planet you know someone is willing to bomb, in an uninhabited region no less, is not a great way to ensure that a) you survive long enough to be reunited with your crew, b) you are not blown to bits by your own torpedoes, and c) that you luck out and get captured.

At this point, I realize that I sound horrifically negative about this film, so I’ll talk about what I did like. I love the aesthetics of this film, especially the new warp core (that’s actually a real world anti-matter research device). I love the fact that Kirk violates the TNG style Prime Directive to save the primitives. The Vengeance is a great looking ship and seeing it kick the Enterprise’s ass is surprisingly satisfying after decades of impotent combat performances from various Trek shows. I especially love how it’s the best of Ben Sisko and William Adama in one ship – first it punches you in the face with phasers, then it bludgeons you to death with everything else in its arsenal. In fact, I really wish it wasn’t in this film, so it could be the Mirror Universe version of the Abrams Enterprise (and not get wiped out in the reset button ending of Star Trek into Darkness). I also liked that Spock beat Khan by getting him to beam an armed torpedo aboard, although I don’t like how that was followed up (the Vengeance not being vaporized, the extra thirty minutes or so of film after that, Spock not letting the frozen Augments die without any real reason).

Before I switch to criticizing the handling of the heroes, I have one last villain to cover – the Klingons. At no time in the movie did I ever feel like they were a real threat. Marcus mentions that they’ve conquered two planets since the Federation first encountered them – not an impressive track record, even if it’s not taking into account unknown conquests. Then comes the Enterprise violating Klingon territorial boundaries (despite its orders to stop in the Neutral Zone, unless the Neutral Zone is within Qo’nos/Kronos’ solar system) without being detected by anything. The D4 Birds of Prey do make a semi-decent showing until Khan appears and wrecks their shit, and the Klingon makeup itself is great, but having one man steamroll through a few dozen soldiers and three ships doesn’t make them look all that threatening. At that point, you’re wondering why Admiral Marcus is so scared about them and whether or not he’s just paranoid, which probably wasn’t the writers’ intent.

I think Kirk is handled much better in this movie than in the previous one (where he was douchebag most of the time). Yes, his decision to take the Enterprise underwater was stupid, but it’s not like the writers haven’t thought about doing that before (Thirty Days and the initial plan for Starship Down). I’m still not sure why this Kirk and Spock are friends, but at least they have more banter and scenes that prove that they can play off each other well.

Kirk isn’t really that dumb in this movie – sure, he fires Scotty in a moment of anger (although Scotty’s harping about military operations is ironic because Starfleet operates military shuttles) and his decision to capture Khan seems rather abrupt. Sure, he misses the fact that they could probably program the torpedoes to stay in synchronous orbit over the Ketha Province and then send them down in waves after the Enterprise left, but that’s neither here nor there. The real problem is how he handles Khan once they space jump to the Vengeance.

Kirk sees Khan beating the crap out of the Section 31 crew and tells Scotty to shoot Khan when they get to bridge – which is a good, competent decision. What he doesn’t tell Scotty is to set the phaser to kill (which we know Scotty can do, because he sets it to kill (red barrel) when he gets his phaser). Normally, stun would be a good enough option, but this is Khan, the guy who singlehandedly wiped out a ton of Klingons and is leading them to the bridge of a ship that can be operated by one person… and is in weapons range of the badly damaged Enterprise. Stun might not be enough to stop this man and too many people’s lives are in the balance to take that risk. Shooting him with the kill setting (ideally several times, although with Khan’s plot shields, that might not be enough) was the best choice… and Kirk didn’t make the call, meaning he’s indirectly responsible for all the people Khan kills when the Vengeance crashes into San Francisco.

Spock is alright in this movie, aside from screwing over Kirk and being an ass to Uhura. The only real problem with his actions is the fact that he diverted valuable medical and engineering personnel to save the frozen Augments (although there’s a question of how they even had enough time to do it). From a practical standpoint, it’s a waste of resources that could be used to treat injured members of the crew and fix the ship so they can escape. Not only that, but removing the people inside could potentially alert Khan to the fact that the torpedoes have been tampered with, so there’s even less incentive to do it. It seems to me that the writers wanted to have their cake and eat it too – a “dark” film that didn’t require the protagonists to actually dirty their hands, even if what they did made total sense in the context of the film.

didn't think of killing Khan’s people in the torpedoes, tossing the torpedoes into the sun/Jupiter, taking the Vengeance and firing the torpedoes at Khan, or anything you can think of.

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Getting Kirk to fire the torpedoes at Khan, for example.

bullethead said:

sure, he fires Scotty in a moment of anger

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No, Scotty insisted on resigning in a moment of anger.

bullethead said:

What he doesn’t tell Scotty is to set the phaser to kill

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Inconsistent with his earlier decision not to kill him.

bullethead said:

Then comes the Enterprise violating Klingon territorial boundaries (despite its orders to stop in the Neutral Zone, unless the Neutral Zone is within Qo’nos/Kronos’ solar system) without being detected by anything.

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It's the K'normian trading ship that ends up violating Klingon territorial boundaries, not the Enterprise. According to the dialogue in the film the Enterprise was stopped in the Neutral Zone.

bullethead said:

At that point, you’re wondering why Admiral Marcus is so scared about them

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Because he's concerned about their overarching potential for interstellar conquest, not their troops' ability to duke it out on the ground against super-augments.

Then comes the Enterprise violating Klingon territorial boundaries (despite its orders to stop in the Neutral Zone, unless the Neutral Zone is within Qo’nos/Kronos’ solar system) without being detected by anything.

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It's the K'normian trading ship that ends up violating Klingon territorial boundaries, not the Enterprise. According to the dialogue in the film the Enterprise was stopped in the Neutral Zone.

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Are you sure, because the movie sure makes it seem like the Enterprise is orbiting Qo'nos/Kronos, since we never see the K'normian ship go to warp or any other indication that the planet isn't Qo'nos/Kronos.

How did Marcus know that Khan would beam to an uninhabited area of Kronos. Sure he wouldn't have minded bombing an actual populated area, but he couldn't see that idea to Kirk or whomever else he got to carry out the mission.

Are you sure, because the movie sure makes it seem like the Enterprise is orbiting Qo'nos/Kronos, since we never see the K'normian ship go to warp or any other indication that the planet isn't Qo'nos/Kronos.

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We never see the K'normian ship go to warp, but there is a cut in which it could have done so. And it must have gone to warp at some point, because Kronos presumably isn't right on the border of the Empire ( although it's not necessarily canon, you can kind of see this at one point in the video here ). The Enterprise was stopped short of its destination. The planetary body found in its vicinity is the planetoid on which Carol and McCoy opened the torpedo.

Flying Spaghetti Monster said:

What I can't figure out was the techno-babble line that prevented the Vengeance from firing on the Enterprise. Khan ends his explanation by saying "Which gives us the advantage."

But his explanation didn't make a lick of sense.

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He wasn't talking about the Vengeance firing on the Enterprise or vice versa. It had nothing to do with that. He was talking about the method they were using to travel through the ship to get to Marcus, and why they would have a theoretical advantage because the Vengeance crew would presumably hesitate to shoot in the proximity of critical systems. It made 100% sense, however many licks that is.

Flying Spaghetti Monster said:

Another thing I can't figure out was whether Khan acknowledged Sulu's deadline in any way.

Kirk buried alive in a dead planet should do the trick, naturally Khan wish he could do more but he settled for that.

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But the point is, Khan didn't have to settle for that. There was absolutely no reason he couldn't beam up Kirk as he had just beamed up Genesis fifteen-seconds earlier.

Khan didn't beam up Kirk because it would've stopped the movie dead in its tracks by having Khan snap Kirk's neck.

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Just butting in to say that given Khan's preference in STID, it's more likely Khan would've crushed Kirk's skull than snapped his neck.

If there's any explanation at all for not beaming up Kirk that has an ounce of credibility, I'd say it was Khan's growing increasingly irrational as the movie goes on. Hell, he didn't even really strand him. How could he even think he did? Kirk wasn't missing. Everyone knew where he was. He was beamed there from the Enterprise, for crying out loud.

I can understand some disagreements on the perceived qualities of the various iterations of Trek. But it's starting to get out of hand. It feels like some folks are coming to this forum just for the chance to pick a fight.

I'm not a huge fan of Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise but I don't feel the need to rush into those forums and take a dump on something other people obviously enjoy.

It's starting to feel mean-spirited and I really think that is sad.

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The problem is that every Star Trek fan -- irrespective of what series he likes -- watches the movies. The reason why this STID division is bigger than most is because it ain't a clash of different ST, it's a clash of quality or even the Star Wars vs Star Trek argument.

The first group appears rather happy with what is a rather average, at best, movie. While the second group sees STID for what it is and is one more Star Trek film running on vapours. The same kind of vapours which had Nemisis, VOY and ENT limping along.

I think the biggest point of contention is that STID suffers from this post-millennial malaise where films pass muster with alright characters, a threadbare plot and some decent action scenes. But older films have done such things in a far better way and Star Trek is not supposed to be Star Wars. There is something more fundamentally amiss with STID which is far bigger than the potential problem being a different series, a different cast or something.

Finally to SeerSGB. You are absolutely right about the fact that if you think really hard you can rip any Trek film to pieces and find like several or so major plot holes. But why not tally up all the plotholes in STID, I bet the final number would be greater than either Star Trek V, Insurrection or Nemesis!

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And only a few posts up, I asked that people (including you, by name) stop taking pokes at groups of fans for enjoying something which you may not have enjoyed. You now have a warning for trolling; comments to PM, please.

The first group appears rather happy with what is a rather average, at best, movie. While the second group sees STID for what it is and is one more Star Trek film running on vapours. The same kind of vapours which had Nemesis, VOY and ENT limping along.

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Oh Lordy, Lordy!!! I've finally seen the light!!! How could I possibly enjoy something that I find fun and exciting!!! I've been following the false Trek prophet Abrams and am now seeking absolution!!!

What a fucking joke.

Why are you and others so damned convinced we don't know what we like? How is a pair of movies that are thought of highly by viewers and just produced the highest-grossing installment in the franchises history, running on vapors?

<snip>

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Don't be quite so quick to take the bait. Try just ignoring it for a while.

Then comes the Enterprise violating Klingon territorial boundaries (despite its orders to stop in the Neutral Zone, unless the Neutral Zone is within Qo’nos/Kronos’ solar system) without being detected by anything.

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It's the K'normian trading ship that ends up violating Klingon territorial boundaries, not the Enterprise. According to the dialogue in the film the Enterprise was stopped in the Neutral Zone.

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Are you sure, because the movie sure makes it seem like the Enterprise is orbiting Qo'nos/Kronos, since we never see the K'normian ship go to warp or any other indication that the planet isn't Qo'nos/Kronos.

(BTW, which spelling are going with in this forum?)

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Ja, first I thought so myself. But I later realized they were nowhere near Kronos, they only augmented a picture of Qu'ono's on their viewscreen and that stellar body you could see near the Enterprise was the little moon where Bones and Carol opened the torpedo

It's the K'normian trading ship that ends up violating Klingon territorial boundaries, not the Enterprise. According to the dialogue in the film the Enterprise was stopped in the Neutral Zone.

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Are you sure, because the movie sure makes it seem like the Enterprise is orbiting Qo'nos/Kronos, since we never see the K'normian ship go to warp or any other indication that the planet isn't Qo'nos/Kronos.

(BTW, which spelling are going with in this forum?)

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Ja, first I thought so myself. But I later realized they were nowhere near Kronos, they only augmented a picture of Qu'ono's on their viewscreen and that stellar body you could see near the Enterprise was the little moon where Bones and Carol opened the torpedo

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Marcus made it clear they were supposed to hang on the outside of the edge of the Neutral Zone and fire the advanced torpedoes at Khan. That was the whole point, the torps were meant to be long range, untraceable, super torpedoes.

Right before, Spock warns the crew to brace for a shock wave from the exploding torpedoes he beamed over to Vengeance.

Could it be, perhaps, it was that shock wave that pushed Enterprise into earth's gravity well causing her into free fall?

Also, did Vengeance crash, or did Khan directly aim Vengeance into earth's atmosphere? It wasn't careening out of control when we see it fly past Enterprise on it's way toward SF. It was taking a straight shot down.